"Would he come, if he were asked yet again, and knew that a few weeks-- maybe days--would end his mother's life?" "I doubt it, Perrotine." "Wherefore? He can love well where he list." "Ay, where he list. But I misdoubt if ever he loved her--at the least, sithence she let him from wedding the Damoiselle de Ponteallen." "Then he loved the Damoiselle very dearly?" "For a month--ay." "But wherefore, when the matter was by--" Lady Basset answered with a bitter little laugh, which reminded Perrote of her mother's. "Because he loved Jean de Montfort, and she thwarted _him_, not the Damoiselle. He loved Alix de Ponteallen passionately, and passion dies; 'tis its nature. It is not passionately, but undyingly, that he loves himself. Men do; 'tis their nature." Perrote shrewdly guessed that the remark had especial reference to one man, and that not the Duke of Bretagne. "Ah, that is the nature of all sinners," she said, "and therefore of all men and women also. Dame, will you hearken to your old nurse, and grant her one boon?" "That will I, Perrotine, if it be in my power. I grant not so many boons, neither can I, that I should grudge one to mine old nurse. What wouldst?" "Dame, I pray you write a letter to my Lord Duke, the pitifullest you may pen, and send one of your men therewith, to pray him, as he loveth you, or her, or God, that he will come and look on her ere she die. Tell him his old nurse full lovingly entreateth him, and if he will so do, I will take veil when my Lady is gone hence, and spend four nights in the week in prayer for his welfare. Say I will be his bedes-woman for ever, in any convent he shall name. Say anything that will bring him!" "I passed thee my word, and I will keep it," said Lady Basset, as she rose. "But if I know him, what I should say certainly to bring him would be that Sir Oliver de Clisson lay here in dungeon, and that if he would come he should see his head strake off in yonder court. He is a fair lover, my brother; but he is a far better hater." Perrote sighed. "Amphillis!" came faintly up the stairs and along the gallery. "Am-phil-lis!" "Go, child," said Perrote, replying to a look from Amphillis. "'Tis Agatha calling thee. What would the foolish maid?" Amphillis left her work upon the bench and ran down. "Well, it is merry matter to catch hold of thee!" said Agatha, who was waiting at the foot of the stairs, and who never could recollect, unless Lady Foljambe were present, that Amphillis was to be addressed with more reverence than before. "Here be friends of thine come to visit thee." "Friends!--of mine!" exclaimed Amphillis, in surprise. "Why, I haven't any friends." "Well, enemies, then," said Agatha, with a giggle. "Come, go into hall and see who they be, and then tell me." Amphillis obeyed, and to her still greater surprise, found herself in the presence of Mr Altham and Regina.